I always cringe when someone says, “You have to watch this show,” because more times than not, that show is in its second or third or sixth season. Recently, more than one person has told me that I need to watch Game of Thrones. And so it began. I watched the first season and was briefly reminded that I had seen most of those episodes. There is ten episodes per season. Each episode is an hour. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here, I don’t usually have an addictive personality, but when it comes to binge watching shows, I apparently do. I watched the second season in two or three days. I would wake up early and watch an episode before work. I would come home and watch two or four episodes. And I only really hate binge watching because it’s so time consuming. I spent one whole day off work doing nothing but watching Game of Thrones. I watched a whole season. Season Three on a Thursday. Ten hours of television. I hated myself.
Otherwise, I love it. I like that I don’t have to wait a week to see the next episode. I just hit play. But binge watching a series is a lot like writing or training for a marathon or any other thing you commit yourself to do. That is all you do. At least, that is all I do. There’s no cleaning, there’s no yardwork, there’s no cooking. It’s all quick and easy tasks so I can get back to the task at hand. And for this particular show, the task at hand was to keep up with the Starks and John Snow, of course. I had to binge watch. I was practically forced to binge watch by the spoilers floating around in the world. A guy at the YMCA almost spoiled it for me the other day. Then, a customer came in looking for the John Snow edition of Newsweek or some other magazine. And then I read a little snippet about John Snow’s enormous penis that was recently shown (covered of course) and the controversy over why it was covered when most of the naked women on the show are full frontal nude. And there have been some flaccid ding a lings here and there, but not John Snow’s. I don’t think that can be considered a spoiler if you haven’t watched this show yet, so I’m not one of “those spoiler people.”
Another thing I love about binge watching a series is when it has teenagers or preteens in it and it’s been on for four or five years. When you just watch it weekly, you don’t quite notice how they are growing up. I don’t know why it always amuses me, but it does. First, they are little and cute and then they start going through puberty and you can tell their faces are changing and their noses are getting bigger and they look kind of awkward like they don’t quite fit in their skin. I think it’s a good learning experience for other pre-pubescent kids who may be watching. Although, maybe I’m the only unfit parent who lets their kid watch it, but Bran Stark is a perfect example of puberty. A person could tell their kid, “you think you have it bad? Look at that little stark boy. His nose has outgrown his face for the next two years. And he’s still cute. Awkward, but cute, so I think you’ll live too.” Same with Arya. Or maybe I’m just easily amused.
Either way, I finished Game of Thrones today. I watched the last aired episode. And it was bittersweet. I didn’t want to be caught up, because I like hitting the play button, but I was glad that I got caught up, because I went to lunch with my friend, the Poet, today and we talked Game of Thrones from the time we ordered until our food came. It’s like we were talking about our friends. And we were both so into it. I think our server was either really confused that we had such brutal friends or he completely understood and was biting his tongue so he didn’t interrupt our heated conversation.
Needless to say, I’m hooked. I have my favorite characters and my favorite story lines. And I have my loathed characters that I want to reach into my television set and murder with my own two hands. Someone suggested I go back and read the books, so I think that will be my next move. If you haven’t started this show, I highly recommend it. Also, I am currently not taking anymore suggestions of shows I haven’t seen yet. I need my life back.
RouletteWeekend 